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Having attended a lot of schooling and even earned a degree does not imply you know the first thing about civics, if that isn't what you studied. If that was not true, there would not be so many ridiculous videos on the internet asking college students how say "the electoral collage works" and getting blank stairs or completely confused answers.

Conservatives on the other hand tend to be 'preoccupied' with the system and learn the rules.

Citation? Civic knowledge coming out of college is comparable between political affiliations (that is to say, equally bad for conservatives and liberals) but it's a well established fact that the more time you spend in college, the more likely you are to vote, and the more liberal you tend to become. So conservatives at a given level of education do no better than democrats at their civic knowledge, yet as a whole tend to be less educated... looks like your narrative that conservatives have any special regard for the constitution isn't holding up.

By the way, this should be very clear by the fact that most conservatives are currently screaming for suspects on the FBI watchlist to have their second-amendment rights revoked without any kind of due process or appeals process. Oh, and the fact that the republicans just nominated a guy who wants to ban immigrants based on religion. All of this should be terrifying to any Constitutionalist.

While I completely agree with a lot of what you say, I can't completely blame the greedy for acting greedy. I think it is the fact that most people don't care and won't educate themselves beyond their government sanitized education. Maybe that is why we have a system that takes a normal inquisitive outgoing and leads them to believe it is a chore. Everyone is so trustful of the government that they do not challenge it; whatever it does, even if it upsets them, that is just "the way things are". People have lives and families, and things they care about that they don't have time to ensure that their city or county, let alone country is run in a way. What we are left with is a few people with nothing better to do than to run for public office. In a way, it is still the same joke it was in high school. Now add to that hard working, intelligent, responsible individuals that want or need something done. Those rich and powerful people (lets just say for a moment they earned it). Whatever they want, they need only convince some of the dumbest, laziest, frat boys that they should get whatever they want, however they want.

Government should coordinate what people need when it is something for the government to handle, but people are easily bought, and while corporations SHOULD be fighting and lobbying for their needs, it is our responsibility as individuals to get people that represent us to stand up for our communities and only help provide the kind of infrastructure that is going to encourage business, not just the best businesses we like that make the biggest promises; no wonder politicians behave this way, we elect them in exactly the same manner.

This is all the more reason people (aka the government) need to allow people to be responsible for themselves and enable liberty then let the chips fall where they will. Market and business with customer needs and desires is already a crazy ball of unpredictable momentum. When government becomes this giant effort to control what everyone wants and needs, it fails. Government CAN NOT do that job. We can want it to, we can desire it to; it isn't that I think it is wrong for the government to do this, it CAN'T do it. They tax, criminalize, subsidize, and every time something goes right, somehow they get credit, and when it goes wrong, they say it was because they didn't do enough. It is no surprise that on a recent civics test / survey that among the MANY tracked demographics, those who had "ever held public office" was second for very worst.

I'm quite glad we live in a republic, where the stupid elect those who have demonstrated they at least have machiavellian intelligence. It's fortunate for all of us that one breed of intelligence usually includes others as well. -_-

Does it really? This report begs to differ. Elected officials are actually dumber than the general public, at least when it comes to civic literacy: Elected Officials Score Lower than the General Public In Civic Literacy Test

By in large a majority of the American people can not answer the following questions.

Which of the following are the inalienable rights referred to in the Declaration of Independence?
In 1933 Franklin Delano Roosevelt proposed a series of government programs that became known as:
What are the three branches of government?
What part of the government has the power to declare war?
The Bill of Rights explicitly prohibits:
Name two countries that were our enemies during World War II.

and others..

http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/2008/report_card.html

Then maybe you should take the test yourself?

I scored 78% and I am not a US citizen.

Among the 2,508 respondents, 164 say they have been elected to a government office at least once.

These people may have marked themselves as elected officials out of pure carelessness. If they're making mistakes on that they are likely to have made mistakes elsewhere as well. That's probably why these people scored lower than average.

when you RTFA, you find that they are culling the results from "self-identified elected officials." So, anyone could take the test and, for a laugh, identify themselves as an elected official.

No, no, no. When you read the actual report, you find that, "[o]f the 2,508 people surveyed, 164 say they have held an elected government office at least once in their life." This strongly weighs against your claim of selection bias (especially self-selection).

Operating on the assumption that this is the test: http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx
Given the number of questions about economics I suspect the group that promoted the test had an ulterior motive. I noted some issues with the questions and answers:

Q. 10: Name one right or freedom guaranteed by the first amendment.
A: Religion
Issues: The first amendment prohibits the US Congress from making any law that restricts religion. It does not explicitly bar the states from making such a law. That restriction has been inferred.

Q. 13: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas would concur that:
A: certain permanent moral and political truths are accessible to human reason
Issues: I believe that philosophy and civics are separate. I would not necessarily expect a state legislator to understand Plato.

Q. 25: Free enterprise or capitalism exists insofar as:
A: individual citizens create, exchange, and control goods and resources
Issues: Individual citizens can "create, exchange, and control goods and resources" in non-free enterprise systems of economy. In most economies, including that of the United States, the freedom to do so is restricted.

Q. 27: Free markets typically secure more economic prosperity than government's centralized planning because:
A: the price system utilizes more local knowledge of means and ends
Issues: The question assumes that free markets do secure more economic prosperity than centralized planning. During the current economic crisis governments that regulated their economies have been less affected than those that opened their markets without conditions. The question also fails to establish what is meant by centralized planning. Our current socialist system empowers the Federal Reserve to guide the economic system. The power of the Federal Reserve seems to have diminished but it's hard to argue that it has not stabilized our economy in the years since the Second World War.

Q. 29: A flood-control levee (or National Defense) is considered a public good because:
A: a resident can benefit from it without directly paying for it
Issues: A public good is one that is "non-rival in consumption and non-excludable".
An excludable good is one where consumption can be controlled. A Cable TV signal is excludable because you can be prevented from consuming it if you refuse to pay. A radio transmitted television signal is not excludable because anyone with a receiver can consume the signal.
A non-rival good is one where one person's consumption of the good doesn't prevent another person from also consuming it. An example of a non-rival consumable is a radio transmission. If I turn on my television to consume a radio transmission I do not prevent you from also consuming the same transmission.
A flood control levee is arguably excludable by controlling access to the protected land. Also, levees certainly benefit one group more than another. If billions of dollars of Federal money are spent in New Orleans to rebuild levees, the benefit does not accrue equally to those of us living outside of Louisiana.

Q. 30: Which of the following fiscal policy combinations would a government most likely follow to stimulate economic activity when the economy is in a severe recession?
A: decreasing taxes and increasing spending
Issues: The question touches on two important observations regarding economics. The first is that in some cases government spending can stimulate the economy. The second is that higher taxes may constrain growth.
Historically we have been able to stimulate growth through government spending in certain circumstances. However, simply diverting money from one pot to another is unlikely to help. In order to be effective the spending must be targeted.
As for taxes

Preview fail, it was a table. http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/2008/additional_finding.html

Daft! I scored 84.85% on http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx , and I'm English, born and bred. A lot of the answers can be intuited from the questions though. I also got answers from American TV imports. And reading a lot. Perhaps politicians should spend more time in front TV, or with theirs noses in a good book, they'd do less damage that way!

For what it's worth, I took the test just now and got 100%, but I find a few things about it questionable: First, there are several questions that I'm not sure really fall under the definition civics. Second, several of the questions are of a theoretical rather than factual nature and I got the distinct impression that the test makers were pushing a specific (libertarian/conservative) ideological agenda. Maybe my impression was incorrect; I haven't had a chance to look up the group yet.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines civics as, "a social science dealing with the rights and duties of citizens." Most of the questions deal with the structure of our government and the history of that structure, so they can reasonably be said to fall within civics. But consider the following questions:

13) Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas would concur that:

25) Free enterprise or capitalism exists insofar as:

27) Free markets typically secure more economic prosperity than government's centralized planning because:

30) Which of the following fiscal policy combinations would a government most likely follow to stimulate economic activity when the economy is in a severe recession?

31) International trade and specialization most often lead to which of the following?

Number 13 is a question of philosophy (or, if you like, history mostly far preceding US history). Questions 25, 27, 30, and 31 are questions of economics. I suppose you could include economics as part of civics, because it's important to governance, but on that rationale you could start including all sorts of things, like statistics. Also, the answers to the questions are largely theoretical in nature. While there may be a consensus view amongst economists, they don't really admit clear empirical answers due to the complexity of disentangling the various influences in macroeconomics. On the topic of how best to stimulate economic activity, there are various different schools of thought that advocate different approaches and have enjoyed popularity at different times.

The other point was more a vague feeling I got that the questions were pushing an agenda. The survey picks out "religion" as one of the constitutional rights, rather than "freedom of religion". It asks for the attribution of the phrase "wall of separation" between church and state, and highlighting that this is not from the constitution (even though it is from one of the framers) is a favorite past-time of those who advocate a larger role for Christianity in government. Questions 27 and 31 praise free trade criticize centralized economies. And answering one of the questions "correctly" points out that federal disaster aid is not guarantied by the constitution (relevant to disagreements over the aftermath of hurricane Katrina). It's not really pronounced and may be just coincidence, but I'm curious if anyone else got this feeling. I'll have to look up ISI and see if I've guessed correctly. In any case, it occurred to me that you could use the press release to get the general public to take it and use it as a push poll, stating your opinions as the "correct answer" or selecting factual information in such a way as to give the appearance for support of your argument.

Why do they point out gaps that are in the noise range such as liberal vs. conservative, non-church-goers vs. church-goers, but say nothing about significant ones such as male vs. female and Republican vs. Independent vs. Democrat? http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/2008/major_findings_finding1.html

It is, and here is the breakdown question by question:
http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/2008/additional_finding.html

Quiz is here...

It's not a test on civic knowledge, since that would be a test composed of questions about how the government works. This is also a history, philosophical test w/ biased questions (e.g. why is free market better than government central planning presumes a conclusion).

So I'm sure that everyone's going to realize this and not start debating based on the misleading summary.... oh wait. NM. Carry on.

In case anyone wants to see the actual test:
http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx

Sidenote: I had a feeling based upon the questions that the group has some kind of agenda (they claim that modern education isn't liberal, as in liberal arts, enough). Not to say that people shouldn't know these answers - but claiming that this is somehow reflective of civic knowledge is completely misleading.

As said by other posters, where's the test so we can take it? Looks like it's here.

Google is your friend....

http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx

Perhaps this is what you are looking for: http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx

Why do socialists insist on making the same economic mistakes over and over again?

Well, when those doing the voting are allowed to remain uneducated, you can sell them the same swill over and over.